Georgetown, MD to Reedville, VA

Wednesday, November 3rd - Day 6 (cont...)

We motored into Georgetown Yacht Basin just after noon.  As typical for us, we didn't even leave the boat for a walk after not being ashore for 6 days.  Instead, we went through our checklist of putting the boat to bed and getting her (and us) ready to leave for "a few days".  Our schedule had many options and we were not sure when we would be back.  Earliest would probably be next Monday but it could be several weeks.

Here is Second Wind all snug in her slip at GYB.

The next morning, Laura's friend Janet and her husband Guy drove down from the Albany area to pick us up for a ride north.  We arrived in Clifton Park just before 3pm and prepared for a busy weekend of personal business.

Monday, November 8th - Day 7

Everything went well with our business up north.  My sister Denise and husband Tom drove us back to Maryland and Second Wind in the morning.  We arrived around 1pm and said sad good-byes to them.  They were so awesome to put us up for 4 days and we had a great time with them.

The boat fared well being alone for 4 days other than being very cold inside.  I ran the heat-pump for heat plus turned on an electric heater in our cabin.  In 1/2 hour the boat was toasty.

I made sure everything was ready to go tomorrow morning as we were planning on leaving as soon as we could see good enough to motor out of the marina without hitting anything.  We even ran the engine for 20 minutes to warm it up.  It was pretty cold and took a little longer to start when I turned the key.

We hit the sack early with the alarm set for 5:30am.

Tuesday, November 9th - Day 8

When I had checked the marine forecast over the weekend, it looked like we had 3 (or more) days of very nice weather for motoring / sailing down Chesapeake Bay starting today.  Yesterday, it changed to just 2 days.  This is why we wanted to leave as soon as we could and would bypass Annapolis this trip.  We wanted to get to our friends Walter and Mary's in Reedville to be nicely protected for the storm predicted on Thursday night.

We were up right after the alarm went off.  It was nice and toasty in the boat with the heat running all night.  After dressing in many layers, we got ready to leave.  I started the engine and configured our instruments while Laura spent a lot of time cleaning our clear cockpit windows.  There was lots of dew this morning.  Yuck.

By 6:15am we were slowly motoring out of the marina and down the Sassafras River back to Chesapeake Bay.  It's about 8 miles from the marina to the bay so we had lots of time for breakfast and checking that everything was working right on the boat.  

Laura took this colorful picture of the sunrise behind us.

The bay was very calm today with just 4-6 knots of wind on the nose.  A few hours later we approached the Bay Bridge just before Annapolis.  I'm surprised how nice this picture came out considering it's right into the Sun.

The bay stayed calm all day and we picked up the ebb tidal current in the afternoon for a little help with our speed.

Our short-term goal was to stay in Reedville with our friends Walter and Mary, at their private dock, for the storms Thursday night into Friday.  It is approximately 120 nautical miles from Georgetown to Reedville.  We typically would break this up into 3 easy days of around 40 miles each - Georgetown to Annapolis, Annapolis to Solomons, Solomons to Reedville.  But, the weather would be deteriorating on Thursday so we needed to get there Wednesday afternoon or early Thursday.  

If there was a good anchorage between Annapolis and the Solomons, it would have worked out great for us to just keep going for a few extra hours today.  However, the only "close" anchorage was just 5 miles south of Annapolis.  That wouldn't gain us much distance to make Reedville tomorrow.  Instead, we decided to keep going to the Solomons with a estimated arrival of 8pm.  The forecast was for light south winds during the night so we would just pull into the big bay south of the Solomons and anchor along the southern shore.  This should be no problem in the dark because we wouldn't have to do any close-in navigating through the Solomon creeks with limited visibility 

Because it was a beautiful, calm day with the boat running nicely on autopilot, we just relaxed and worked a few boat jobs - mostly cleaning and picking up.  It was a pretty sunset as we motored past the Choptank River.

By 6pm it was totally dark but the crescent moon gave us a little light on the water.  The boat ran fine and there were no problems navigating the middle Chesapeake in the dark with great instruments and good radar.  

Just after 8pm we dropped our anchor along the southern shore in Lord Baltimore Bay (just south of Solomons).  We watched TV for only a short time before we both decided to hit the sack early.  It was a long, 14-hour day on the water but we should have a much shorter day tomorrow.

83 nautical miles today.  401 total trip miles from Catskill.

Wednesday, November 10th - Day 9

No alarm set for this morning but we woke just after sunrise.  We had slept well in this calm anchorage and were ready to continue our journey south on another beautiful day.

Winds were predicted to be from the W to NW so I was hopeful we would be able to get some engine-off sailing this morning and afternoon.

As we pulled the anchor, the winds were dead calm.  We motored out of the large bay back onto the Chesapeake just after 8am.  Our winds did eventually pick-up a little from the west at 6-8 knots and we rolled out our jib and main to help our speed a bit.  I was able to lower our engine RPM but there was not quite enough wind to turn it off and still make Reedville this afternoon.  It was another pretty day on the Chesapeake.

There had been almost no wind for the past 2 days but, for some reason, there was a slight swell from the south that bounced us around a little.  Not the calm, steady ride we had yesterday.

Sometimes when crossing the Potomac River, it can be quite rough with west winds.  Today the winds stayed light enough that the crossing was very nice.  In fact, we had left Solomons just as the tidal current changed to the south so we had helping current all morning.  The boat stayed near 7 knots all day with our engine RPM down from our normal 2,100 to just 1,600.

We entered Ingram Bay just after 1pm, pulled in our sails and turned north up the creeks to Reedville.  Here is the downtown Reedville from the water.

A few minutes later we tied up at Walter and Mary's dock, put the boat to bed after our cruise and walked up to the house to say hello.  Here is Second Wind all safe in her slip for the next few days.

We had cocktails on the porch then dinner in the house together.  It was lots of fun being back together with Walter and Mary - we really look forward to stopping here twice a year.

42 nautical miles today.  443 total miles from Catskill.

Thursday, November 11th - Day 10

We both were restless in the night - probably a result of a little too much partying last evening with Walter and Mary.  Laura is going with Mary to a local woman's luncheon today and I'm working on the blog.  Walter and Mary had plans for dinner tonight with local friends so we are on our own for the evening.  Not a problem as we really enjoy each other's company.  

Geez.  Our weather forecast for the next week or so really turned to crap.  Yesterday, it looked like Saturday we could leave for Deltaville then Sunday down the Bay to Norfolk.  We would then have 3-4 nice travel days with light winds for getting to Oriental, NC when we have marina reservations for a month (or more) starting around Nov 15th to the 20th.  

Now it looks like the only possible travel days are maybe Sunday and Tuesday - and even these days don't look great.  The other days are winds out of the south or in the 30s.  I'm not sure I've even seen a stretch of bad winds for Chesapeake Bay last for 10 days before.  But, not to worry.  We are in a protected area with good friends to keep us company.  If we have to stay a little longer, oh well....

Atlantic Highlands, NJ to Georgetown, MD

Monday, November 1st - Day 4 (cont...) -

Happy Birthday to me!

We had the anchor up and left the nice anchorage at 11am.  I slowly motored around behind the breakwater while Laura finished cleaning the anchor with our washdown hose up on the bow.  I could see the whitecaps in the lower harbor over the breakwater so didn't want to motor our there while Laura was working.  She would not have been happy with the bouncing and flying water.

A short time later she had everything put away and the anchor secured in it's mount.  I increased RPM to 2,100 (our cruising RPM) and turned the boat north for the 3.5 mile run up and around Sandy Hook.  The wind was as predicted - 20 to 25 knots from the NW which made for a bumpy upwind ride.  The wind angle was too close to the bow for using sails to help us so we just slogged along with the motor.  By time we turned east around Sandy Hook, the boat was soaked with saltwater from the spray of the waves hitting the bow.  A few minutes later we turned south down the coast and everything calmed down as we pulled out 3/4 mainsail and 3/4 jib.  Second Wind surged to mid-7s with the nice broad-reach sailing and we were finally able to shut down the engine.

The seas were light with just a small swell from the north.  Since the winds were off the land, if we stayed close to shore it should be a calm ride.  I kept the boat 1 to 1 1/2 miles from the shore all day using the radar.  Here we are on our first sail of the trip.

We had nice sailing for over 6 hours.  As the winds dropped to low teens then single digits later in the afternoon, our apparent wind moved forward and made sailing difficult.  With the wind speed changing from 9-22 and angle moving around 20-30 degrees, the boat made much better time setting the autopilot on wind-angle then trying to keep the sails trimmed for best speed.  This means the autopilot monitors our wind instruments and turns the boat to keep the wind angle (close to) constant.  The boat stays powered up and our speed stayed near 7 knots the whole time.  The boat ends up making a slight zig-zag track down the coast but we never slow down.  It's much faster overall.

By 5pm the wind had died enough that we were below 6 knots so I started the engine for assistance.  I usually time our leaving Atlantic Highlands for about 24 hours before low tide at Cape May which is 110 miles away.  Figuring we would be averaging 5 to 5 1/2 knots, that would get us to Cape May in time for the flood tide to push us up Delaware Bay.

But, this trip was a little different.  The weather forecast had changed and the NW winds would be right on our nose if we turned up Delaware Bay around noon-time tomorrow.  Instead, I was trying to catch the end of the previous flood tide which would end around 7am.  Because the high winds had kept our boatspeed in the 7's for the first 6 hours, we had a good chance of making it.

Just before sunset I took this picture of our new instruments to show what they look like when sailing down the coast.  

I had the display set on "Charts" - not radar which worked great the whole trip.  If you blow up the picture, I'll talk about a few items....

First, the instrument in the lower left is our autopilot control.  Notice that it says "Wind Vane mode.  Wind:80 S"  The autopilot was changing the heading of the boat based on what the wind was doing.  If the wind moved a little forward, it turned the boat to port.  If the wind moved to more behind us, it turned the boat to starboard.  These changes were gradual as it averaged the wind direction over time.  It didn't jerk the boat back and forth.

There is a lot of information on the chartplotter but I'll let you scope it out.

Skies had cleared during the day and our first ocean sunset of the trip was a little subdued.

We changed our normal overnight watch schedule because I needed to be at the helm for navigating around Cape May through the Prissywick Channel.  I took the 8-12 first watch while Laura tried to sleep for a bit.  Most of the time we don't sleep well on the first night of an off-shore passage but the boat was not moving around very much with the calmer winds and low seas.  She was able to get a couple hours of sleep.

Tuesday, November 2nd - Day 5

Just after midnight, Laura relieved me and I slept fairly well until my shift at 4am.  We had just passed the Cape May inlet and were only about 1 hour from rounding the Cape.  Excellent!

I navigated us around Cape May at 5am and it was very nice to have the tidal current pushing us at 7 to 8 knots.  I was hoping our speed would keep up with the current so we would cover most of the bay before the NW winds built in sometime after noon.  If we were caught in the middle of Delaware Bay with 15 knot NW winds, it would be a very trying day pushing against the wind and currents.

It was a beautiful sunrise on Delaware Bay.  Here is a panorama video I took just after sunrise.

 

Our trip up the bay worked out much better than I had hoped.  Don't you just love it when that happens!  The currents helped us for the first 30 miles and we never saw more than about 12 knot winds on the nose until we turned toward the Chesapeake - Delaware Canal around the nuclear power plant.  We entered the canal a couple hours later and had a nice 12 mile trip to Chesapeake Bay.  We never saw one other boat through the entire canal.  Was everybody else south already?

I wrote in the last blog that we had the option of running down the coast all the way to Norfolk if the winds were good.  The forecasts from Windfinder.com and PredictWind.com both showed higher winds on Tuesday night into Wednesday moving to the north and northeast.  This would cause bigger seas off-shore Maryland and maybe a wild ride with the winds and seas behind us.  Plus, we didn't have a marina reservation in Norfolk and we heard they were very busy right now.  This, coupled with getting to Cape May a few hours early, made the decision easy.  Onward to Georgetown, MD via Delaware Bay!

The Sun was setting behind us as we turned east into the Sassafras River around 5:30pm.  All the wind forecasts were wrong as the afternoon and evening N to NW wind increase never happened.  I expected to have some help from the sails for the 15 mile trip down northern Chesapeake Bay but the winds stayed calm all afternoon.  We ended up anchoring in the dark around the "S" turn at 6:30pm.  I gladly turned the engine off after 26 straight hours.

Laura and I relaxed and watched some TV but we were both falling asleep on the sofa.  We hit the sack around 9:30pm and I fell right to sleep.

Wednesday, Nov 3rd - Day 6

It was a cold night with the temps dropping into the 30s outside.  Since we were going to a marina today, I had kept the inverter on all night to run our new electric blanket which drained the batteries a bit.

Temp was 59 inside our cabin when we got up.  Laura was up earlier and I slept in a bit.  I had about 10 hours of great sleep in the calm anchorage and felt much better.

We relaxed a bit in the morning and got the boat ready to head into the marina.  Tomorrow we will leave the boat for a bit (a few days?) for some personal travel.  Hopefully, we will be back in a week or so to continue our trip south.

Halfmoon Bay to Atlantic Highlands

Day 2 - Halfmoon Bay (cont....)

We sat out the storms and big winds in our nice calm anchorage 1/2 mile west of Halfmoon Bay Marina.  As I was writing the blog in the early evening, our Honda eu2200 generator died and I figured it was out of gas.  It had been running our heat for several hours and I had just turned on the water heater for showers.

After posting the blog, I went out on the back deck and filled up the generator with gasoline then pulled the starter rope a couple times.  Running out of gas empties all the fuel lines so I figured it needed several more pulls to get the gas into the carburetor.  Well....  after 50 or more pulls I knew something was wrong.  

I removed the fuel line going into the carb and there was gas.  I squirted a little gas into the carb, pulled the starter rope and the engine did run a few seconds.  The problem was now isolated to the carburetor.  I pulled the carb off the engine to bring downstairs, take apart and clean out with carb cleaner.  I figured running the engine out of gas had sucked up something (dirt, grit, etc.) from the bottom of the fuel tank and maybe clogged the carb jets.

This was the first time I had taken the carb off our 1-year-old eu2200 but I had done this several times with our old eu2000.  After taking the float bowl apart, I squirted carb cleaner through all the lines.  Then I started putting it back together.  Oh boy.  The o-ring around the float bowl was too big and wouldn't stay in the groove.  With Laura's help I used some grease to keep the 0-ring in the groves and a heat gun to soften up the rubber.  It took us about 1/2 hour to get the o-ring into the grove and put the float bowl back on.  Success!

When I went out on the back deck it was dark already so I set up a few lights to see what I was doing.  I had removed the electronic governor from the top of the carb and, now that I looked closely, it wasn't very clear how it went back together.  I tried a few options and eventually had to call Laura again to assist with holding a tiny spring in place and the flashlight while I tried to squeeze everything back together.  I even tried searching on YouTube for videos on putting the governor back together but couldn't find one.

After another 1/2 hour Laura had an excellent suggestion of trying a different assembly strategy and it worked the first time.  Thanks Baby!

I gave the engine about a 50 / 50 change of starting after I had it all back together.  With all the problems we had, I figured something wouldn't be right.  Second pull and it started!  We ran the heat all evening watching TV down in the salon.  It was toasty....

Day 3 - Halfmoon Bay to Atlantic Highlands

We both slept well last night and the weather seemed better this morning.  Time to go!

After engine checks (added a little oil and tightened new alternator belts), we pulled anchor and motored south.  Winds were mostly on the nose so no help with the sails.

About an hour later we approached our first bridge of the day - Tappan Zee (I know it's been renamed but it will always be the Tappen Zee to me....)

The river wasn't quite as empty as Friday with a few more commercial and pleasure boats around.  It was a quiet ride and the tidal ebb current helped us zoom through New York City.

I think this building in Jersey City is cool.  We called it the Ganga Building.  Would you want to live or work here?

Manhattan from the south.

Winds were from the SW most of the day (right on the nose) and picked up to mid-teens in the afternoon.  As we turned more south under the Verrazano Bridge, we were finally able to put out about 3/4 of our jib and we zoomed the rest of the way across the lower harbor to Atlantic Highlands.

Those that know me understand I am big on planning.  We had been watching the weather for the next couple days and had scheduled to be here today for the off-shore window down the NJ coast tomorrow.  The window still looked good with NW winds helping us down the coast.  But, they would also be N to NW when we took the turn around Cape May and up Delaware Bay.  Anything more than 10 knots winds on the nose and we have problems motoring into them.  If the winds stayed N to NW for Tuesday into Wednesday, it might be better to just keep going to Norfolk.  We've done that trip several times.  It's about 260 miles and takes us 3 days and 2 nights from Sandy Hook to Norfolk off-shore.

So.....  Sometime tomorrow when we are sailing down the coast of  NJ, we need to decide if the winds down Delaware Bay will be light enough for us to motor against.  Or, we will keep going down the coast of Delaware and Maryland for Norfolk on Wednesday.  Stay tuned for the result!

Since we might be spending the next 3 days off-shore, I decided to fill up our fuel tank at the Atlantic Highlands marina.  $3.94 / gallon for off-road diesel.  Geez!  But, we only needed 56 gallons from our fill-up here last June.

Pretty sunset around the clouds at the Atlantic Highlands anchorage.

We relaxed, watch TV and listened to the wind howl during the evening.  Big winds (20-30 from the SW) continued all night.

Day 4 - Atlantic Highlands to ..... 

It was a quiet morning as we prepared the boat for our off-shore run.  No hurry as we were waiting until late morning for the 20-30 knot winds to die a bit and hopefully turn more to the north for better sailing.  Once we get around Sandy Hook and turn south, it should be very nice sailing in the lee of the land.  WindFinder predicts 2 foot, 8 second seas and falling during the day.

I worked on the blog while Laura cooked up a storm.  She is preparing our next 2 nights dinners so they can just be reheated at sea.

Generator is still running great.

Ok.  Time to post the blog and finish my preparations for the ocean. 

Trip South 2021 - Day 1 & 2

Summer Project(S)

My major project for the summer was replacing all of our electronics with updated equipment.  Our radar needed to be replaced because the screen had become "crazed" in the middle making it pretty useless.  My initial research indicated the new marine radars were a "whole new breed" and I liked the RayMarine Quantum radar a lot.  It even color-coded the ships around you - red for vessels coming toward you and green for vessels going away from you. 

Building on the new RayMarine Quantum Q23D radar base, I selected a 9' RayMarine Axiom Pro multi-function display (MFD), a RayMarine p70s Autopilot head, a Raymarine i70s multifunction display (configured for wind) and a RayMarine ITC-5 converter for using my old analog depth and wind instruments with new new digital dudes.

I selected a NavPod box which was custom made for these instruments.  I also changed my entire helm station by taking off the old instrument mounts and adding a new Edson Guard.  

But, before I could buy new instruments and mounts, I needed to do weeks of research on what would work with my existing transducers and how it would all wire together.  I found a diagramming / wiring application called ProfiCAD which would work on my Windows computer.  After a couple hours learning the software, I started putting everything together on the computer screen.  I think it took me about 2 weeks of research, planning and adjusting before I had something close to finished.  Thanks so much to my friend Paul who also owns an Endeavour 43 and just completed a new instrument project.  He was a great source of excellent advice.  Here was the final diagram.

 

I wanted to use as much of my existing equipment and wiring as possible but, as you can see from the color-codes in the diagram, only a few items were kept.  I planned for future expansion with both the SeaTalkNG and NMEA2000 networks by having extra connections available.  Future expansion might include a better depth transducer and tank sensors for our fuel, water and waste tanks.

First step was replacing the radar.  I could do this without removing my other instruments but it wouldn't be usable until I had the new Axiom hooked up.

I called my friend Rob for assistance with mast climbing and he readily agreed to come down and spend what ended up to be 5 hours, 30 feet above the deck on our mizzen mast.  Here he was disconnecting our old radar dish.

After getting the old system to the deck, we pulled a new power wire through the mast into the cockpit. (I would later run this down into the engine room and our instrument panel.)

The new 12 volt power wire to the radar dish is coiled on the seat.  Next to it is the old radar cable with power and wiring.  I would completely remove this wire from the boat as the new radar talks to the Axiom over Wi-Fi.  No big honkin' cable needed!

Rob then installed the new radar dish.  Luckily for us, RayMarine kept the same mounting holes so it was fairly easy to bolt into the existing mount.

Now Laura and I could start on the rest of the instruments and helm.

Here is what my helm looked like before I started.  Notice the radar screen on top is burned-out in the center.  When you are using radar to look at other vessels and objects around you at night, the center of the screen is most important.  This was really bad.

This is the forward (other side) of my old helm.  Notice all the wires coming up from a hole in the floor into the engine room underneath.

We started by removing all the old instruments and wiring.  Laura was a great helper.  Here she was helping with getting all the wires disconnected.

After removing all the instruments and freeing up all the wires, we took apart the pedestal.  We now had a large, but somewhat manageable, mess.

After cleaning everything up, we installed the new guard (hand-hold) and NavPod.  This NavPod was custom made (holes pre-cut) for the instruments I selected.  In this picture, the guard sticks way up above the NavPod.  Before permanently mounting everything, we would cut about 6 inches off the bottom of the guard so it wasn't sticking up and in the way when looking forward.

Before final install, I had to make sure my wiring was correct and the new instruments were working.  Here is my first power-on with the instruments wired.  Rob was very excited to hear the radar worked without any problems.  This was the first time I could test it after he installed it on our mizzen mast.

After final fits of the guard and NavPod then completing all the wiring, it looked pretty good.  Here I have everything working and mounted.  The new helm!

Here is the forward side of the pedestal after we plugged the hole with epoxy, sanded then repainted.  Compare this to the old picture of all the wires running down this side.

A few days after completing everything, we went on our first sea-trial.  It was awesome to see everything working after all our hard work.  I have the new display configured for split-screen - radar on the right and chartplotter on the left.  

This was a great result from a lot of work.  I know there are other makers of excellent marine electronics but because I had a RayMarine autopilot and transducers, it was almost a no-brainer for me to design around the RayMarine offerings.  I'm sure it would have been much more difficult to bring in a different instrument manufacturer and make everything work happily together.  All in all, I'm pleased with the RayMarine instruments.  Only experience and time will tell if the decision was right in the long run.

We also had planned to install a new teak cockpit table from Edson as part of this project.  Unfortunately, they were having supply problems with some of the fittings so it was not available right now.  We will probably order one when we get to Florida this winter.

While sailing back up from Florida in the spring, we noticed that the leach line on our jib had come unsewn in several places.  Also, some of the edges around the clew of our mainsail needed sewing.

In mid-September, we had some time and nice weather to start working on these.  We took down the mainsail and were able to re-sew the bad parts by hauling our SailRite sewing machine out onto the cabin top.  This job only took us maybe 3 hours including dropping, sewing and hauling up the sail back up on the roller.

We knew the jib was going to take more work so we setup the sewing machine under the marina tent with a couple re-arranged picnic tables.  It turned out the whole leach of the jib needed to be re-sewn - about 58 feet.  The sailmaker had use the sail fabric to loop around the leach-line then sewed it down creating a tunnel for the line.  Over time, parts of the cloth on the leach weathered in the Sun and became worn.  We decided to cut thin strips of sailcloth (that we had purchased for this job) and sew a new "tunnel" onto the edge of the sail for the leach line.  Oh boy.  This was a lot more work than we thought but it came out great.  Here is Laura working on the jib under the tent.  You can see about 1/3 of the jib in the picture.  The rest of it is outside the tent waiting to be pulled through the sewing machine.

We were able to complete this project in a day but we both had cramps in our hands that night from man-handling the sail through the sewing machine.  Yes - I took my turn too.

I had purchased 3 more portlights from Defender to continue the replacement job on Second Wind.  These were #16, 17 and 18.  As we were delayed a bit from heading south, we decided to install these in our aft cabin instead of waiting until we were in Florida.  We replaced the one on the starboard side which took about 3 hours.  Overview of the job was -

• It started with using razor and putty knives to dig out the calk around the old ports and remove them.  
• Then clean all the old calk off the boat with knives, sandpaper and lots of elbow grease (new calk doesn't stick well to old calk).  
• Check the fit of the new ports and remove parts of the boat with sander or jigsaw that might block us from getting the new calk all the way around it.
• Install new ports with through-bolted machine screws
• Calk around the port and install the trim ring

The next day we moved the boat to the other side of our dock so we could get to the port side.  There were two ports we needed to replace here so we decided to do them at the same time to (theoretically) make things quicker.  Doing them together did save us overall time but it was too much work for one day.  Our fingers and arms were sore for several days and Ibuprofen became a good friend of mine. 

Sorry that we didn't get any pictures but you can review the blog from last spring if interested.

Friday, October 29th - Day 1

After several busy weeks of preparation, working on the boat and many other distractions, we finally left the dock in Catskill at 6:50am this morning - our latest date we've left Catskill in 14 years.  Our plan for today was to motor / sail 65 miles to Haverstraw Bay where we would anchor along the eastern shore for storms tonight and Saturday.  So far, Monday looks good for traveling off-shore down the NJ coast and up Delaware Bay on Tuesday.  We would like to get to Georgetown, MD where we have reservations for the Yacht Basin on Wednesday.

Laura and I were up at 6am making coffee and getting the boat ready.  It was cold out!  The temp was 35 degrees.  I dressed in many layers including long-johns.  I bet you wonder why I have them on the boat, right?  It's for days like today....

After getting all the instruments running, I started Gertrude (our Perkins engine) and worked on disconnecting us from the dock.  Last night I had removed all the storm lines and drained then stowed our hose.  I also had completely cleaned the decks and cockpit yesterday to prepare for leaving.

Laura helped by wiping down all the clear cockpit canvas which had become covered with condensation through the night.  Thankfully no frost!  (No defrosters on the boat....) Finally, at 6:50am, we pulled our last dockline and I put the transmission in reverse to back out of our slip.  It was dark with light fog in the creek.

We had a major storm 3 days ago which brought floods to the creek and surrounding area.  Yesterday I thought the current in the creek had gone way down and didn't even think about it as I backed out of the slip.  But, there was enough current to pull the stern of the boat sideways which I quickly recovered from by increasing the throttle and turning to port.  No problems slowly motoring down Catskill Creek in the dark.

As soon as we turned out onto the Hudson River, it was a whole new world.  It was like driving with a sheet across the front of the cockpit.  Even when driving at night you have lights on shore to help orient yourself.  Today we were completely fogged in and even when it started getting light a little while later, we couldn't see more than 100-200 feet from the boat.

Because of the big storm, there was still lots of debris and large logs / trees in the river.  Laura perched on on the bow with a searchlight to look for big stuff.  As we only motor at 6 mph, running into the little branches and logs is not a big deal but the big stuff can leave a mark.

After an hour or so our visibility (and the light) increased enough to where I could see, and try to avoid, the floaters in the river directly in front of us.  Laura was able to come in and warm up!

It took 3 hours for the fog to lift.  We were almost to the Kingston - Rhinecliff Bridge before we saw the shore on each side of the river.  Luckily, there was only one tug pushing a barge during that whole time and we were able to take the eastern channel around Germantown Reach so we didn't have to worry about coming close to each other.  Here we are approaching the Kingston Bridge.  You can see that most of the bridge is still in the fog.

The Sun finally came out around 10am and started warming up the cockpit.  It was a nice day for about 3 hours.  Then the clouds came over and blocked out the Sun for most of the day.  

One nice thing in our favor was the storm and floods from 3 days ago were still affecting the river tidal currents.  When we left the creek is was during full flood current and we should have been slowed down to 4.5-5 knots.  However, because of all the extra water from the rain, we never dropped below 6 knots all morning.  After passing Kingston, we started picking up the ebb current and our speed stayed in the mid 7s for the next 4 hours.

Because we were so late in the season, the river was deserted. Except for the one tug and barge (which I saw on radar and AIS but never visually saw), we had one southbound powerboat pass us around Hyde Park and saw a couple day-cruise boats down by West Point.  No other river traffic.  Part of this might be because the Erie and Champlain Canal locks closed on October 15th this year so no northern New York or Canadian traffic on the river heading south. 

I spent some time playing / using the new instruments and really love the new radar.  In the fog it was invaluable.  It was even sensitive enough to pick up some of the larger floating logs and trees around us.  That's pretty cool.  As we were working our way down the river using just instruments in the dense fog, I was very glad that I had done my homework and hooked up everything correctly because now wasn't the time to have problems with them.  

The new autopilot controller worked well, the new wind instrument seemed correct and the new chartplotter / radar were awesome.  I couldn't have been happier with the new systems.

The 67 nautical miles from Catskill Creek to Haverstraw Bay would typically take us about 11-12 hours.  Today, because of the recent floods, we were there in 10 hours.  Excellent!

We anchored in Halfmoon Bay at 5:20pm as the winds were just starting to pick up from the east.  Big storms expected tonight from the east so we anchored 1/4 mile from the eastern shore.  Nice and protected from any wind-driven waves and big hills in front of us to maybe cut town the 40 knot winds predicted for tonight.

After anchoring and relaxing a bit, Laura made Seafood Chowder for dinner (Thanks Betty!) and we relaxed with a few shows on Netflix and Hulu with our SmartTV hooked to our cell phone hotspot.  We hit the sack early and I was asleep by 10:15pm. I think I was really tired from trying to be super-diligent in the fog for several hours. There were squalls with high winds and rain all night but I slept through them with the AquaMaps anchor watch running on my iPhone right next to my head.  Looking at our anchor alarm track in the morning, the boat didn't move more than about 30 feet from where we anchored.  Nice test of our anchor rode on our first night heading south.

Saturday, October 30th - Day 2

We are sitting out the storms and south winds today in our nice protected anchorage in Halfmoon Bay.  Here is a screen-shot from AquaMaps of where we are.  The red dotted line shows where we motored south yesterday into Haverstraw Bay and the little icon of the sailboat is where we are now.  Notice the excellent protection from east and south winds at this anchorage.

Today we are catching up on a few projects.  As you can see, I spent several hours working on the blog.  Laura is carving her Halloween pumpkin.  We also stowed away all of our dock lines after drying them on our cabin top yesterday.  I'll check the engine in preparations for getting underway tomorrow morning when we plan on motor-sailing through New York City and anchoring behind the breakwater at Atlantic Highlands - one of our favorite anchorages.  I usually try to time the trip through New York City with the ebb tide helping so we don't spend as much time trying to dodge ferry-boats but tomorrow the tide is against us all afternoon.  Maybe we will get some help from the winds?

Winds will shift to the west tomorrow which should make for good off-shore sailing down the coast of New Jersey on Monday.  Wish us luck!

Annapolis to Georgetown, MD to NYC to Catskill

Thursday, May 27th - Day 43 (Start of week 7)

Storms and rain kept us awake a bit in the night but the big winds never made it into our very protected anchorage.  Autumn Borne left at first light and sent us this nice picture of Second Wind still sleeping at anchor.

We were up a short while later and pulled the anchor at 7:15am.  It was a calm morning as we motored out of the Severn River onto Chesapeake Bay.  Annapolis Harbor looked "normal" again after the thousands of boats anchored for the airshow when we came in.  Compare this picture to the one I posted a few days ago.

Windfinder.com showed light NW winds which should have been a little help to us motor-sailing up the bay.  But, the winds were actually closer to the bow so we really never got any help.  Instead, we motored on a calm Chesapeake with a little tidal current helping for the first couple hours.

We turned east into the Sassafras River just after 2pm.  Check out how calm the water was.

It is 9 miles from Chesapeake Bay to Georgetown, MD up the Sassafras River which we took at a normal leisurely pace.  We had never stayed at Sailing Associates before and looked forward to checking out a new (to us) marina.  We have stayed at Georgetown Yacht Basin - across the river - but heard they were closed.  Afterwards, we found out that the Yacht Basin was not closed and there were many boats at their docks.  

It was a hot, humid day with almost no breeze as we motored here from Annapolis.  I had our custom sun-shade canvas up to keep me out of the Sun while running the boat but was still soaked with sweat by time we docked.  At one point, I checked the weather app and it said, "88 degrees - feels like 103".  Yikes!

Good news is the marina had a nice pool.  We wore our bathing-suits to check-in and spent a very nice couple hours in and around the pool later in the afternoon.  Here is Laura in the pool with the marina office to the right and their bathrooms over to the left.

 

The marina manager, Pam, was very nice.  I paid for 3 nights thinking we might leave Sunday if the nasty weather was over by then.  The reason we decided to stay at the marina was storms predicted for Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.

Very colorful sunset at Sailing Associates Marina in Georgetown, MD

Marina WiFi was excellent and we watched a few shows on Disney+ and Netflix before hitting the sack early.

45nm today, 1,256.5 total trip miles

Friday, May 28th - Day 44

Last night the temps outside only went down to mid-70s and the boat was very warm because of the hot engine room.  We turned on our air-conditioning which dried out the boat and make it much more comfortable for sleeping.

Mid-morning we decided to go for a walk and loosen up our legs a bit.  It is hilly around here so it would be a good workout after spending several months in the flat coastal areas of the south.  The Sun was out when we left but clouds built in so we decided to make a loop of about 2.5 miles and not go too far from the boat which was opened up for fresh air.  As we were walking, the winds shifted to the north and you could feel the temperature drop.  It was nice for walking but felt cool when we got back to the boat.

Later in the afternoon we had a few showers then heavy rain and storms overnight.  No pool today but we did work on a few boat projects.  Our friend Lee had built me a wooden stand for the Captain's chair I purchased for motoring up and down the ICW.  It wasn't great for sailing but excellent for just driving the boat on calm waters.  After painting the decks and cockpit last Winter, the stand Lee made was making big marks on the softer, non-skid deck paint.  Laura had tried putting some rubber shelf-liner on the wooden stand so protect the decks.  Unfortunately, it didn't last and came off over the past couple weeks.

Today we tried a new fix - boat blanket.  We had purchased several yards of boat-blanket (a thicker material than canvas) for covering our new fenders.  We had a bit left so Laura cut some strips and we screwed them into the stand.  It looked pretty good and will still let me move the chair around for comfort but hopefully not slide or scratch the paint.  Now we just have to fix where the paint is all scratched.  That will have to wait for some nicer days.

There is a nice restaurant nearby called The Granary and we planned on going there for happy-hour today.  Unfortunately, after checking on the Internet, their happy-hour was only Tuesday to Thursday.  Plus the weather was turning nasty so we decided to stay on the boat for cocktails and dinner.

Saturday, May 29th - Day 45

Not much going on today.  Storms and rain almost all day kept us in the boat puttering around.  The rain did let up for a bit in the late afternoon so I walked up to the office and paid for Sunday night too.  The weather forecast for Sunday showed clearing and winds out of the north which might have been nice for just going down the river a few miles and anchoring.  But, the temps were going to stay in the 50s so we decided to stay here where we would have heat while plugged into the dock.

I did practice the flute in the afternoon and have been working on some new, very challenging music with come complicated fingering in the higher register.  Since I was playing inside the closed-up boat, while I was collecting my flute and music, I also grabbed the ear-defenders I use while working in the engine room with a running diesel.  I handed them to Laura saying she might need them because I was working on some new music.  She smiled and put them on.  'nuff said......

Laura cooked some boneless chicken breasts in the Insta-Pot and made Chicken chow mein for dinner.  We've found that cooking chicken in the Insta-Pot makes it very flavorful and juicy.  It was excellent.

Sunday, May 30th - Day 46

It looks like we have an excellent weather window for motor-sailing up the NJ coast on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Plans are to leave here early tomorrow and travel the 40 or so nautical miles to Reedy Island on the north end of Delaware Bay.  There is a nice anchorage there and we could catch the early morning ebb tide Tuesday morning for the run down the bay and up the coast.  Current forecast shows winds from a helping direction the whole way and seas in the 2 foot range.  Excellent!

Last night the temps went down to the high-40s and we kept our central heat on all night.  The boat stayed comfortable and I had turned the heat down so it stayed cool in our cabin (but not cold).  Only one day from air-conditioning to heat.  Are we becoming wussies or is this crazy weather?  Probably a little of both...

This morning Laura went up and coordinated with the manager Pam for a ride to the local grocery store.  We were getting a little low on fresh veggies which we eat quite a bit of. I eat them every day for lunch with 1/2 a chicken or ham sandwich.  This grocery run will stock us up for the next week or so.  We'll probably be in Atlantic Highlands area on Wednesday but nasty weather is coming again on Thursday and Friday so we might not leave the boat for many days. Oh well...  we like it here.

Catching up on laundry is next on the list.  I'm going to help Laura carry the laundry basket the 1/4 mile or so to the coin laundry at the next marina over.  There isn't laundry at this marina but they have a deal with the Sassafras Harbor Marina so we can use their laundry.  Maybe I'll practice the challenging music on my flute while Laura is gone with the laundry....  Do you want to know what the songs are?  One is Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - IV Rondo".  It's a doozy on the flute.

We finished our laundry and a few other boat projects to get underway again tomorrow.  Since we would be probably motoring for over 30 hours, I was especially critical during my engine checks.  I topped off the oil and water / antifreeze then tightened the alternator belts just a bit.  I think we are ready!

Monday, May 31st to Tuesday Jun1st - Days 47 & 48

We were up early and off the dock at 6:50am.  I like leaving early on travel days which gives us more options for where to stop at night.  No problems getting away from the dock and the weather was sunny and clear as we slowly motored out of Georgetown.  I had thought about getting fuel before we left but the fuel dock at the next marina didn't open until 8am.  We had enough fuel on-board to motor about 500 miles but diesel is usually cheaper here than Atlantic Highlands or Catskill.  If we fill up here, we can go all the way to Catskill and back to here in the Fall on the same tank.  Diesel here was $2.74 / gallon but we motored right by as they were closed.

Winds were about 10 knots on our nose as we motored the 9 miles out of the Sassafras River to Chesapeake Bay.  Once we turned up the bay toward the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, winds were on the beam so we rolled out our jib and mainsail.  Not quite enough wind to sail over 5 knots so we kept the motor running at low RPMs.

A couple hours later we turned east into the C&D canal and rolled in the sails.  We had the currents with us and we motored at 7-8 knots the 15 miles to Delaware Bay at the other end of the canal.  Only interesting thing that happened was I noticed the free dock in Chesapeake City was open.  We've only seen room at that dock once in the 10 years since they built it.  Figures it would be open when we didn't need it.

Dean and Sue on Autumn Borne were about an hour ahead of us.  They had been anchored on the Sassafras River while we were at the dock in Georgetown.  Dean and I texted each other during the morning and he said it was very nice out on Delaware Bay.  They were catching the last part of the ebb tide so had currents helping for a bit so decided to press on to the Harbor of Refuge anchorage at Cape Henlopen.  This got Laura and I thinking about if we should keep going past our planned anchorage at Reedy Island and maybe do the coastal trip tonight.

I checked all my weather apps and it didn't seem to make much difference in terms of winds or seas if we did the NJ coast tonight or tomorrow.  We would have the Delaware Bay currents against us for several hours but it would change to helping about 1/2 way down the bay.  

The two items that helped us decide to keep going were Dean said the winds were help them and I thought we could get around Cape May before dark.  It's great traveling this time of year when it doesn't get dark until 9pm.  We exited the canal, turned south on Delaware Bay and put out our big sails with 10 knots of wind just behind the beam (broad-reach).  

The trip down Delaware Bay was very pleasant.  Light winds made only a little chop on the water coming from behind us and they kept our boat speed over 5 knots against the flood current.  4 hours later when the current changed, we ran 7-8 knots all the way to Cape May.  

This 50 miles run down Delaware Bay can be very nasty so we carefully choose our weather.  It's almost impossible for us to make this run with the winds on the nose or any seas on the bow.  Without helping winds, we don't have enough horsepower in our little Perkins diesel to push us through waves and winds on the nose.  But, today was excellent until an hour before Cape May.  The winds turned to the south and picked up to mid-teens.  We were traveling SE so there was just enough wind angle for our mainsail to help the boat speed and calm the movement in the growing sea.  

The Cape May ferry passed in front of us a little while later.

 

We rounded Cape May through the Prissywick Channel about an hour before sunset.  It was nice to have the currents with us for a change.  Typically we leave the C&D with the currents helping and, by time we get to Cape May, they have changed to against us.  Today was a different story as we ran 7 knots all the way around Cape May and headed up the coast of NJ.  

Here was our colorful sunset over Cape May a little while later.  I worked hard to get the flag in the picture to help celebrate Memorial Day!

Laura decided to try sleeping just after sunset since it had been a long day for us.  Unfortunately, the seas were off the starboard quarter and just high enough to roll the boat in a corkscrew motion when the bigger ones came by.  The boat would be nice and stable for maybe a minute then a set of larger waves would rock us 10 degrees to each beam.  It was not a fun ride.  I had the main and jib configured for a broad-reach which puts them way out from the boat to catch the winds behind us.  This let us run lower RPMs and keep our speed over 6 knots.  But, it was not a nice ride.

A little while later, I pulled the mainsail in tight for roll-control.  This helped immensely to calm down the roll on the higher seas.  We only lost about 1/2 knot which I made up by increasing the engine RPMs slightly.  Now it should be calm enough for Laura to sleep a bit.

As we passed Atlantic City a few hours later, we were able to turn a little more north which put the close swell more behind us.  Now the ride was much better and I was able to let the mainsheet out a bit to help with the boat speed.

When on our night watches, each of us tries to let the other sleep as much as possible.  Laura went down at 9pm for an expected 4 hours off.  I was going to let her sleep until 2am as I was able to stay awake by watching the stars and 1am moonrise.  She came up and relieved me at 1:30am and I was happy to go down for a snooze.

Sometimes when we are at sea overnight, we don't sleep at all - especially the first night.  It depends on the motion of the boat.  If the roll is too much on the larger waves, it wakes you up every couple minutes.  But, we've seen in the past on multi-night trips that the second night you can sleep through just about anything.

Tonight was just a slow "rock-a-bye-baby" kind of motion.  I think I slept 4 hours straight before waking up.  Even then I rolled back over and slept for another hour.  By then it was light out so I got dressed and went to relieve Laura from her watch.  Our agreement is that if the person on watch is too tired to stay awake, they wake up the other person immediately.  I guess she was doing OK because she was still wide awake when I came up into the cockpit.

By this time we were passed Barnegate Bay and approaching Manasquan Inlet.  The winds had moved from the west so I put out the full main and jib.  Once again not enough wind to sail over 5 knots but the ride was nice.  I think Laura slept soundly for 2-3 hours.  Our ride the rest of the day was fairly calm.

At 3pm we motored behind the breakwater at Atlantic Highlands.  Since we really didn't know where we were going next, since the winds were light I decided to head to the fuel dock for diesel and water.  We took on 72 gallons of diesel (from Norfolk) and a little water.   I knew the fuel would be more expensive here but still lots cheaper than Catskill.  Diesel was $3.50 / gallon here (compared to $2.49 in Georgetown).  1/2 hour later we were anchored behind the breakwater and relaxing with a cocktail to celebrate another successful overnight passage.

Laura had taken Filet Mignon's out of the freezer that she had purchased at Aldi's in New Bern when we were in Oriental.  I grilled them up for dinner and we ate in the cockpit enjoying the New York City skyline in the distance.  No pictures because it was very hazy.  Sorry.

I think we hit the sack at 9pm and slept for 10 hours.  We both needed it!

203nm in the past two days, 1,459.5 total trip miles

Wednesday, June 2nd - Day 49 (end of week 7)

We relaxed in the morning with really no plans for today.  As tired as we were yesterday, I had thought of staying here anchored for 2-3 days with maybe a couple excursions into town with the dinghy.  But...  our plans change all the time.

While not at a dock or mooring, our lives are very dependent on the weather.  Where we go and what we do are almost always a direct result of the weather forecasts.  Today our plans changed completely because of the forecasts.

Today was supposed to be nice with showers and thunderstorms coming later in the day.  Then tomorrow was nasty but by Friday things would calm down for several days.  On our way up the coast, we had talked about staying in this protected anchorage a couple days then taking the boat up through NYC and out into Long Island Sound for a week or two.  I had looked at the weather and wind forecast and it looked pretty nice for the next week or so.

But, this morning I checked out the sea forecast on WindFinder.com and PredictWind.com.  Even though the winds were light, seas in Long Island Sound were going to be 4-5 feet for several days.  What's up with that?  The winds were going to be out of the south to southwest for several days so you would think the seas on the northern Long Island shore would be low.  But no.  I checked two different spots along the northern LI coast and they said 3-5 foot seas.  Yuck!  It was not going to be a nice sail around Long Island Sound.  Change of plans....

Autumn Borne had stayed a night at Cape Henlopen then motor-sailed up the coast about 12 hours behind us.  They had stopped this morning just before the Verrazano Bridge at a fairly open anchorage called Graves End.  They were waiting for the flood tide to begin in a couple hours then they were heading up the Hudson to Haverstraw today then our docks at Catskill tomorrow. 

We checked the tide and current tables for NYC and saw that about 2 hours from now the flood current would start.  It would take us 2 hours to get there.  Time to boogie!

In about 15 minutes we stowed everything away, I did my engine checks, started the engine and set up all my instruments.  We pulled the muddy chain and anchor (typical for here.  That's why the holding is so good!) and were underway heading north at 11am.  I had computed we could make the Haverstraw anchorages by around 6pm which were about 50 miles away.  The tidal currents should be adding 1-2 knots to our speed almost the whole way.

An hour later we were motor-sailing under the Verrazano Bridge.

Another hour to the Statue of Liberty.

And then entering the Hudson River at Manhattan.

There is a new park that was built over the past few years over the water on the Manhattan Side of the river.  It is called Little Island and was funded by billionaire Barry Diller.  It consists of 132 "mushrooms" planted into the Hudson with a park on top for the public to enjoy and smaller concerts / attractions.  Here is a link to more information - Little Island.  I took this neat picture as we motored by.

We averaged over 7 knots for the day and were in the 9s several times with the wind helping on our big sails.  It was an excellent day on the Hudson.

Autumn Borne had anchored in Halfmoon Bay (part of Haverstraw Bay) and I was planning on anchoring over there too.  But, the forecast for tomorrow didn't look too good so I thought we might be sitting for a couple days.  That anchorage is open the wakes from powerboats so I instead decided to motor into Haverstraw Cove where we would have great protection from storms and wakes.

No problems getting in through the shallow inlet since we were at high tide.  I could see that we would have been close to grounding if the tide had been low.  We had 3 feet of tide under us and I saw 8.5 feet on the depth sounder.  Our keel would have been "rubbing" at low tide.

We anchored in the northern end because there was a 25' power boat anchored on the south side with several young persons partying and blasting music.  There was also a jetski zooming around (not near us thankfully) and a dance party in the park.  This has always been the quietest place when anchoring here in the past.  What happened?  By sundown, all the noisy folks had left and we had the calm anchorage all to ourselves.

Just before bedtime, I checked the weather forecast again.  Things had changed with storms moving to later in the day tomorrow.  Laura and I discussed then decided to head out at first light to catch the end of the flood current up the river.  We would try for Catskill tomorrow and the end of our trip north.

50nm today, 1,509.5 total trip miles

Thursday, June 3rd - Day 50

We both slept really well as I think we were still a little sleep-deprived after our overnight up the coast.  I woke up around 4:45am and decided to get going.  This happens more often than not.  I had set the alarm for 5am and woke up 15 minutes early.  I must have a pretty good internal clock!

No problems out of the anchorage and we again turned the boat north up the Hudson.  I tried to see if Autumn Borne had left their anchorage and I couldn't see any masts in that direction so assumed they were ahead of us.  I didn't want to text Dean in case he decided to sleep in today.  It was only 5:30am...

Winds helped a little as we ran the jib out on either port or starboard as required to keep it full motoring up the river.  A few hours later I saw this beautiful scene on the western shore and turned the boat around to take a picture.  How pretty is this?

We made it almost to Poughkeepsie before the current changed to against us and slowed to 5 knots.  There was just enough helping wind that the boat never dropped below 5 knots and we made pretty good time the rest of the day.

In the late afternoon around Saugerties the winds picked up to almost 20 knots from the south and I had to take a reef in the jib so the winds were not blowing us down the waves so bad.  We were only about 10 miles from Catskill so we just ran with the waves and winds.

Laura and I got the boat ready for her first dock in several days by dropping the solar panels and cleaning up the decks a bit.  As we turned into Catskill Creek, Laura setup our docklines and pulled our starboard jib sheet and jib roller line to the lifelines to get them out of the way.  We'd done this about 200 times during our charters here so it was like she was on autopilot.

At 4:15pm we pulled into our slip at Catskill Marina with a few locals on the dock to help.  We were tied up a short while later and enjoying a cocktail with the marina manager Mike.

Here is our great boat Second Wind at the dock in Catskill.  Looks like I have a lot of cleaning to do....

 

Autumn Borne ended up being a little behind us and came in around 6pm.  We had a nice reunion and ordered takeout from J&Js Smokehouse for dinner together on the marina lawn where we reminisced about out trip.  

It was a very nice, relaxing trip from Marathon to Catskill.  We didn't push ourselves or the boat other than my trying to rush through Georgia where I just wanted to make the miles because of the twisty-turny ICW and shallow water in many spots.  Once we were in South Carolina, we slowed down and took our time.  We did visit a few new places and different anchorages which is always nice.  

Lots of projects on my plate for this summer including rebuilding my whole instrument panel in the cockpit with more up-to-date electronics and a new RADAR plus replacing our old cockpit table which is not worth trying to save.  I'm also going to look into having the boat hauled and replacing the propeller shaft.  It's been "throbbing" the whole trip north and seemed much worse the last week or so.  I don't think it's to the point where it would not last another 1,000 miles but i would rather not take the chance.

And!  Guest what!  For only the 2nd time in 31 trips, I DIDN'T RUN AGROUND!  Woo Hoo!

65.5nm today, 1,575 total trip nautical miles.

Trip Stats -

Anchored 20 nights

Mooring 8 nights

Marina 20 nights

Overnight at sea 1 night

As I've said in the past, I really write this blog for myself.  I enjoy going back through and reminding myself of the places we've been and things we've done.  I hope you've enjoyed it too!

 

If you would like to see more of the "Travels of Bill and Laura", we've published 4 books on Amazon covering our first 11 years of cruising including almost 2 years cruising the Caribbean, 8 years of starting and running a charter business, lots of work to make Second Wind a better cruising boat, then sailing to other Bahamas islands we hadn't visited before and Cuba! 

All the books are offered in Kindle version (about $5 each) and the first two are also offered in paperback with full color pictures.  You can check out our books by clicking here - Books by Bill Soulier

Here is an overview of our published books...

Book 1 - Sail Away

Bill and his wife Laura travel on their 43’ sailing ketch Second Wind from the United States through the Caribbean for over a year to South America.  This book is written from the detailed Blog that they kept almost every day - from boat purchase to 4 months working on the boat, sailing to Florida, then leaving the United States to sail the Caribbean to South America, until just over a year later when they leave the boat in Trinidad for 3 months.  Details of their travels include over 130 full-color pictures of people, places and (of course) the boat, which they share in this book.

Book 2 – SAIL UP THE PACIFIC

Bill flies to Auckland, New Zealand where he continues his sailing life on the 48’ Ketch Capaz – sailing “up” the Pacific from New Zealand to Hawaii over a 2-month period.  Starting from Bay of Islands, New Zealand, they sail to Tonga, American Samoa, Suwarrow and Penrhyn (Cook Islands), Kiribati (Christmas Island) and Hawaii.  Included are over 50 beautiful, full-color pictures of the trip. 

At the same time, Laura flies to Seattle to be with her daughter who is pregnant and due any day.  Most of these entries are posted by Laura as she receives intermittent emails from Bill out on the Pacific.

Book 3 – SAIL HOME

Bill and Laura fly back to Trinidad in January 2008 and sail Second Wind to Venezuela then up the Leeward and Windward islands and, eventually, back to the United States and the Hudson River.  There they start a successful charter business in Catskill, NY (on The Hudson in summers) and the Florida Keys (Marathon during the winters).  They find many rewards and challenges in 8 years of running a charter business which are detailed in this book along with over 200 beautiful, full-color pictures from their travels and charters.

Book 4 – SAIL ON

Retired from chartering, Bill and Laura perform some major upgrades on Second Wind for a new cruising life – new galley and refrigeration, solar and wind power, new jib and main roller furling, and new bow pulpit.  No longer rushing up and down the coast for charters, they sail to new places including Cuba and Eleuthera in the Bahamas.  Over 130 full-color pictures of their boat upgrades and beautiful new places are included in the book.